Opportunity Rocks (The Cabooze, Minneapolis, Monday, October 21st, 2002)

http://www.opprocks.com Featuring Twin Cities bands Shadowbox, Casanatra and Mars to Mercury

I've just returned from the T-Mobile/Nokia sponsored Opportunity Rocks "The Search for the Next Great Band" contest at the Cabooze. Three bands in ten cities nationwide are currently competing for a chance at $15,000 in gear and an opening slot for the Goo Goo Dolls and Hoobastank at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. The turnout for the Minneapolis leg of the event was very good, the bands and fans all seemed to mingle well, and each band seems to have picked up some new fans. I won't keep you in suspense any further. Shadowbox won. The guys each got Nokia cell phones and $1,000 in cash to share amongst themselves as they see fit. Good work! Now they advance to the next level of the competition.

Judges for the Minneapolis leg of Opportunity Rocks were Brian Oake from Cities 97 and Peter Scholtes from The City Pages whose organizations also served as local sponsors for the event.

Here was the lineup and a rundown of how it went.

Mars to Mercury (http://www.marstomercury.com)

Lance Stevens - Guitar, Lead Vocals
Jeff Rutland - Guitar, Backing Vocals
Krys Baratto - Bass, Backing Vocals
Sean Sauder - Drums

Mars to Mercury filled the tough opening slot of the night. Though this rock band is far from a favorite of mine, tonight they demonstrated a downright spirited rock 'n' roll sensibility I wish they'd shown the first few times I'd seen them. Vocalist Lance Stevens was on tonight, his voice practically soulful. Guitarist Jeff Rutland played to the crowd well. The band was tight, and their song selection as good as it could be given what they have to choose from. Still, the guys seemed a little tense. It would be a big boon to their performance if they could loosen up a bit more. If rock and roll looks like hard work it's going to feel like hard work listen to.

The songs on Mars to Mercury's MP3 site are well-produced and likeable enough if you don't apply too critical of an ear. They had a decent contingent of fans at Monday's competition as could be judged by a few sing-a-longs. I'm just not much of a fan of their song-writing, however, and so not much they can do is going to rescue their stuff from that rut.

They did well to play their best song last, "Collide" from their MP3 site is worth a listen, and if you want to get a feel for this band from one song, this is the one to spin. Of course one drawback to their current one page website is there's no link to their MP3 site from there. (The MP3 link you want is http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/400/mars_to_mercury.html)

In all fairness, these guys played their hearts out last night, but something was still missing here.

Casanatra (http://www.casanatra.com)

Lance Reed: Drums
Dennis Asher: vocals/guitar
Josh Burke: Bass
Jeremy Fink: guitar / vocals

For those paying attention, Casanatra was previously called Sidecar. They changed their name around August, 2002 (source: http://www.angelfire.com/rock/remover/RemoverNews.html.) I'm not sure if the new name is an improvement. It's hard to pronounce (the emcee had a little trouble with it), hard to spell (I saw Casantra in the STrib Friday), and…well a bit on the cheesy side.

I had a definite bias before even hearing these guys. Call me the sensitive type if you like, but I'm not a big fan of machismo rock and Casanatra has a bit of that tough guy sentimentality thing going on. One thing they definitely do have going for them though is lead singer Dennis Asher's powerful voice, augmented by Russell Crow Gladiator-esque good looks. Guitar player Jeremy Fink is a master, having no trouble rising to the occasion of their highly technical brand of hard rock. Their demo "Is This tonight?" on Blue Worm Records is rock solid, and they pretty much played through most of it Monday night, starting with "Childhood," and "Main Motivator" and finishing up with "Ice Age" and a yet unreleased song called "Depreciate," segueing well between songs save for an unfortunate comment something to the effect of not removing shirts because of the cold and some not exactly PC reference to "the ladies."

"Ice Age" featured a groove that might have been a bit too long for a competition where you'd think you'd want to squeeze in as many diverse songs as possible. These guys might have won if they could have squeezed in another song. The set ended with Asher dropping his guitar onto the stage floor. Why? I dunno. It made a kind of cool sound though when it hit the stage though.

Casanatra's EP release party is Wednesday, October 23rd at the Uptown Bar.

Shadowbox (http://www.shadowboxband.com)

Vocals & Guitars - Dan Lichty
Guitars - Dmitry
Drums & Cymbals - Andrew Blessing
Bass - Jesse Lukes

Last to play, but by no means least applauded, came Shadowbox. Did someone stack this competition? Clearly playing the final spot in a competition like this gives you some sort of advantage. Think of it: Not only will you be freshest in the judges minds when it comes to a final vote, but by the third band everyone's had more to drink, and well, you know how that goes. In any case, Shadowbox took any advantage they had and ran with it. After hearing the first two bands I had a feeling these guys were simply going to blow the judges away. (Though Brian Oake conceded in announcing Shadowbox as the winner that the competition was actually very, very close.)

Shadowbox played five songs and nailed them all. Their second song "Stations" was right in the pocket. Lichty's voice soared and I figured they'd clinched the competition right there, but they still had three songs to go. "Long Way Down" hit a sweet spot about 2/3 of the way through and gave me the shivers, and again I figured they'd clinched the competition. Lichty switched back and forth between electric and acoustic guitar, again demonstrating diversity and varying the sound. Before the final clincher, I mean song, Lichty graciously thanked the first two bands and the noted how cool it was to be on the Cabooze stage. I have a feeling they'll be there again soon to far larger crowds than Monday's. They drove the set home with the final phrases from "One Promise," Lichty crooning "I want your love." Ask and ye shall receive.

Congratulations to Shadowbox on winning the competition, but kudos to all three bands for putting on a great (and free) rock show on Monday night.